Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The nation’s first and only Molecularium, in Troy, NY, is designed to introduce students in grades K-3 to simple material science concepts, including the states of matter – solids, liquids, and gases – using planetariums in a new way for science education. Instead of taking people from earth to space, the first show, “Riding Snowflakes,” take viewers on an audio-visual journey through the molecular-scale world. The Elumenati worked closely with Rensselaer’s content developers to retrofit the existing 24′ planetarium dome at the Children’s Museum of Science and Technology to house an Omnifocus HAL-S1 system to project the Molecularium show. The project is part of the educational and outreach program of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s NSF-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures.